Lions new owner all-in

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This article was published 01/10/2021 (1437 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

VANCOUVER — The moment for Amar Doman came just days after purchasing the B.C. Lions, a deal that was years in the making. He was at BC Place, just minutes away from the Lions playing their first home game under his leadership, when he was tapped on the shoulder.

“I was told literally with minutes before the first quarter started that I was going to go out and address BC Place,” Doman said in a 30-minute phone interview with the Free Press earlier this week. “At that moment, I thought to myself this is getting real pretty quick.”

Doman was soon ushered down to field level. It didn’t matter that he was without a scripted statement. He had envisioned this moment ever since he first showed interest in buying the team six years earlier. He was a bit nervous, but ready.

He had grown up in nearby Victoria, where he and his brother first started to fall in love with the Lions. He felt comfortable in the presence of thousands of fans because he’s a fan himself.

Soon, the words started to flow. And at the same time, there were moments where everything just seemed to stop.

“It’s really where the rubber hit the road,” Doman continued, “where I was looking back — I was looking over at the Edmonton Elks; looking at the Lions; looking at all the fans — and seeing myself from the jumbotron… that was where it really galvanized, like, ‘Wow, I’m part of something really special’ and I couldn’t have had a better feeling.”

The 51-year-old then met with the TSN broadcast crew, spending a majority of the second quarter talking up the team in the play-by-play booth, before eventually settling in to watch the rest of the game. While the sequence provided only a brief look into what the future might hold with Doman at the helm, it perfectly captured the kind of passion and role he’s envisioned for himself as the Lions new owner.

Only time will determine if Doman will be a successful leader, but there are already plenty of reasons to feel optimistic about the future. He brings a level of stability, both from a visual and financial standpoint, that hadn’t been seen in years under former owner David Braley.

Braley deserves a lot of credit for saving the Lions in the mid-1990s, including throwing good money at some bad teams. But as time wore on, and his health deteriorated, he seemed too distanced from the local football community. It didn’t help that Braley lived thousands of kilometres away, in Burlington, Ont., where he died in October of 2020.

Doman believes one of his greatest assets is having boots on the ground. He wants to be visible in the community and is unafraid to roll up his sleeves to do the work himself. He doesn’t lack confidence and isn’t afraid of a challenge. How else do you explain buying a CFL team during a global pandemic?

While the Lions have turned into a money-losing investment, with declining attendance numbers, Doman doesn’t view the operation as being broken. Rather, it’s in need of some polishing, something he noted multiple times during our chat. And he truly believes he brings a fresh perspective that can do just that.

“Part of our strategy is not only the resurrection of getting the fan base back into the building but, for me, it’s more about getting youth football re-fired up, getting it orange and black,” he said. “I want the orange and black all over and I’m willing to invest in that happening.”

Doman, who is of South Asian heritage, has the business resume to put his money where his mouth is. He’s the founder and sole shareholder of the Futura Corporation, an asset management firm in Vancouver. Through its direct and indirect ownership positions, it maintains a revenue base of more than $1.5 billion and employs close to 2,000 people.

While he views himself as a long-term strategist, he also has some short-term goals. In order to make Lions merchandise more accessible, he wants to develop kiosks around the province. He’s already spoken with friends and local businesses that used to support the team to find out why they left. He learned quickly that being accessible himself, able to address shareholders needs and questions was a major priority for the public.

With so many options for sports fans to choose from in the province, Doman also understands the Lions need to earn their support. So he wants to give back to community by asking what the Lions can do for them rather than the other way around. While he believes diversifying the fan base is important, whether that is attracting a younger generation or tapping into the various rich immigrant communities throughout the province, it’s also crucial to appease those already supporting the Lions.

It’s by maintaining old or developing new relationships, either through youth football or the local business community, that the Lions will return to great relevancy. Bottom line: they need to feel a part of it in order to want to support it.

“You have to go back to basics and attack this thing in a whole bunch of different ways and I’m willing to invest,” he said. “This is not just the first month of energy — I don’t quit.”

Fans should know that Doman is competitive and has a deep desire to win. Fielding a winning team is important to the brand, he said, and he’s pleased with the kind of exciting play the Lions have shown this season.

He added he’s not the kind of owner that is going to meddle with football operations, and already has a deep respect and appreciation for those running the team. Doman just wants to be loudest fan out there, much like he was as a kid growing up.

“You have to have an inner passion to win and you have to have an ability, I believe, to team coach everybody around you to have that winning spirit,” he said.

“If you really demonstrate that you have an internal fire in your gut that you’re going to get something done, people fall into that and when you can get that excitement and sizzle… everybody goes in that direction. That’s something that I feel has been inside me for a long time.”

jeff.hamilton@freepress.mb.ca

twitter: @jeffkhamilton